Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Ethiopia After Meles

The International Crisis Group has a lengthy paper out titled "Ethiopia After Meles." It's a must read.

The government claims its socio-economic policies have produced sustainable internal development. However, many critics call them state-driven capitalism or authoritarian development, whose major beneficiaries are the political elite and their entourage, not the wider polity. While they have superficial similarity to those in China, they face greater challenges and are unlikely to work well in the long run. The system in Ethiopia was almost entirely dependent on Meles, whereas in China it is based on a party not as troubled by ethnic diversity and with a relatively effective mechanism for transferring power. Now that Meles is no longer at the helm, the Ethiopian elite may well pay a high cost for years of corruption and factionalism and of decreasing attention to the complexity of the society and its demands.